D Gukesh continued his poor form to suffer another loss, this time at the hands of fellow Indian Aravindh Chithambaram, at the 2026 Prague International Chess Festival. The reigning world champion now has three losses in six outings at the ongoing tournament apart from three draws.

The loss pushed the 19-year-old down to the last spot in the standings in Prague and he also fell to world No 20 in live ratings due to this loss. As Gukesh struggles to find consistency, the pressure rises on the youngster for his world title defence that is scheduled to take place later this year.

Gukesh makes another late error

The reigning world champion struggled on time and due to the pressure of clock, ultimately he made a match-losing error. Right before both players were to get an extra 40 minutes on move 40, Gukesh made a blunder and Aravindh took his time to find the winning move and earn his first win of the tournament.

Gukesh had an extra rook and a pawn for Aravindh’s pair of knights with engine putting the latter marginally ahead. However, under time pressure, Gukesh made a blunder through his rook and Aravindh punished it. In the last round too, the teenager had
lost due to time against Uzbekistan’s Nodirbek Abdusattorov.

“One of the crucial factors today, I believe, was the time situation. He (Gukesh) was actually getting low on time and with two knights on the board, it actually can get tricky like it happened in the game. So I wanted to not let him find a direct way to equalize the position. Time actually played a crucial factor,” Aravindh said after his win.

“It was a hard game for both of us. Coming into the game, both of us were having a bad tournament,” Aravindh added. “It was very hard to actually play this game, but I’m happy that I broke my losing streak and managed to win a single game.”

For Gukesh, the continued underperformance is a big warning bell in a year where he has defend his world championship. He is currently 10th and last in Prague with three rounds remaining.